I have the green light to write on anything I want. I was either thinking a fictional story about a character comes out of the mountains on a camping trip to find the zombie Apocalypse has occurred and is on a mission to find his family blah blah blah. Or a story about 2 buddies on a hunting trip get stranded and have to survive. what y'all think? any other ideas?

Go with what you know, what interests you and what you can be descriptive about. If you already have a narrative in mind, that's a long way ahead than picking something you know nothing about.

Not sure how long this is supposed to be, but spend a little time on character development. Readers are more interested in characters they can empathize with than just action/scenes.

And for the love of god use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation.

^^^^ sound advice.

Write about something you have firsthand knowledge of, because you will include detail that has authority and therefore is believable and engaging.

Also, show, don't tell. Illustrate actions and responses, don't spoon-feed the reader everything through narration, or worse, having characters do it in unnatural dialogue (aka, Basil Exposition). A lot of character is revealed in how they respond to what is going on around them. And BTW, no one cares what color thier eyes are. Don't waste time and words with that crap. Unless you are writing a Fabio bodice-ripper, and if you are, we have other issue to discuss.

Dialogue is very tough to do well, so I advise minimizing it and using it for only key interactions.

If you're looking 10-20 pages, don't get too caught up in the minor technical details (e.g. -- don't spend 2 pages describing how to swap a Dana 44 onto a Tacoma) unless they are pivotal to the storyline. You'll be amazed how much you can accomplish with one sentence.

10 pages is enough to tackle 2 conflicts, a broad one and a personal one. For example, surviving in the wild would be the broad one and losing a friend to hypothermia or a bear attack would be a personal one. Or, fighting zombies would be the broad one, while rescuing a family member from imminent death would be a personal one.

If you're looking 10-20 pages, don't get too caught up in the minor technical details (e.g. -- don't spend 2 pages describing how to swap a Dana 44 onto a Tacoma) unless they are pivotal to the storyline. You'll be amazed how much you can accomplish with one sentence.

10 pages is enough to tackle 2 conflicts, a broad one and a personal one. For example, surviving in the wild would be the broad one and losing a friend to hypothermia or a bear attack would be a personal one. Or, fighting zombies would be the broad one, while rescuing a family member from imminent death would be a personal one.

thanks for the advice man

Quote:

Originally Posted by scocar

^^^^ sound advice.

Write about something you have firsthand knowledge of, because you will include detail that has authority and therefore is believable and engaging.

Also, show, don't tell. Illustrate actions and responses, don't spoon-feed the reader everything through narration, or worse, having characters do it in unnatural dialogue (aka, Basil Exposition). A lot of character is revealed in how they respond to what is going on around them. And BTW, no one cares what color thier eyes are. Don't waste time and words with that crap. Unless you are writing a Fabio bodice-ripper, and if you are, we have other issue to discuss.

Dialogue is very tough to do well, so I advise minimizing it and using it for only key interactions.

Go with something you know, something that interests you, and do tie personal events into the paper since it would be more believable.

Set the scene, don't rush into action or rush the story along, and do not forget about the details. The details make the story.

When I read Les Mis unabridged, there was about 40 pages just on the paris sewer system before Javert drowned. Just don't be like Moby Dick unabridged where Meville spent 150 pages describing how a whale is a mammal, but then discredit it by saying that in the bible, Johan was swallowed by a fish, but the only fish in the ocean large enough to do so is a whale, ergo, a whale is a fish.